The present invention relates to a light conduction apparatus which promotes effective distribution of light for the photosynthesis of various photosynthetic substances such as algae typified by chlorella or spirolina, photosynthetic bacteria, artificial photosynthetic substances such as callus, plants and mushroom.
Installations heretofore proposed for photosynthesis include those for culturing chlorella. As well known to the art, chlorella is cultured by photosynthetic reactions under the supply of light and carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) and it has been customary to continuously supply light to chlorella throughout a reaction process. However, detailed analysis of the photosynthesis of chlorella showed that one reaction cycle requires the supply of light only for a fragment of its period (about 10 .mu.sec) and proceeds without light for the rest of the period (about 200 .mu.sec); the supply of light is rather undesirable for an effective reaction except for the fragmental period.
Meanwhile, a light source for culturing chlorella has usually been constituted by a number of fluorescent lamps arranged in a reaction or culture bath. A culture medium is caused to flow through the gaps between the adjacent fluorescent lamps in the bath. This suffers from the drawbacks that the whole apparatus becomes bulky, that the power consumption is objectionable, and that a troublesome countermeasure is required against heat generation. To eliminate these drawbacks, I have proposed in various forms to arrange photoradiators at the ends of optical fibers and converge the sunlight or any desired artificial light into the optical fibers, for thereby utilizing the light radiated from the photoradiators as a light source for photosynthesis. Still, the installations with such photoradiators cannot be made larger in dimension without needing a larger number of photoradiators and, therefore, a larger amount of converged light. This in turn requires a larger device for converging the sunlight or artificial light into the optical fibers.